Men Who Like to Travel - David Latt

Monday Night Football was starting in half an hour. I was tired and wanted to get home to see the game. A steak and the grill waited for me. Problem was, several miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic stood between me and where I wanted to be. In my pre-iPhone days, I would have yelled at the traffic like a crazy person. Now I calmly tapped on the Google Maps icon. With the Traffic setting turned on, the miles of cars I was behind was highlighted by a thick red line. The red lines stretched all around me. I was trapped. And yet, enlarging the map, there were streets that didn't have those scary red lines. Taking a twisting, turning route, the Google Maps app guided me out of the thicket of red lines so I could get home in time to make dinner and watch the game. Thank you iPhone. Thank you Google Maps. This week my iPhone 4S keeps asking me if I want to upgrade to iOS 6. With so many new features, I want to upgrade but one reason that holds me back. No Google Maps. As ev...

What kids don't love dinosaurs, those long dead monsters, some the size of small buildings, others, like the raptors made famous in Jurassic Park , small, ferret like and deadly. Recently we sent David Latt to explore the new Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City and to check out the football field sized bone wall in Dinosaur National Park near Vernal.  What he found was awe inspiring and beautiful, but the story begins with his sons. When my sons were young, we loved to read dinosaur books. They turned the pages pointing at the scary tyrannosaurs rex attacking a hapless three-horned triceratops or a silly looking long necked brontosaurus eating the leaves off a tall tree. Wide-eyed, they asked the obvious question, "Are dinosaurs real?" Those oddly shaped monsters didn't look like the lions, tigers, elephants and zebras we saw at the zoo. Without the fossil record, nobody would believe dinosaurs ever existed. Recently I was offered a tour of dinosau...

Better known for adventure activities and skiing, Utah now has quality restaurants with classically trained chefs who pride themselves on their pursuit of local ingredients. This summer, we sent our traveling foodie, David Latt, to check out the scene and give us a report. He started in Salt Lake City with a meal at a quintessential Mormon restaurant. Utah's Pioneer Traditions To listen to executive chef David Bench talk about cooking, everything he knows he learned from his mom.  The restaurant where he is executive chef, the  Lion House Pantry  (63 East South Temple, Salt Lake City 84150, 801/539-3257), has the low-ceiling-feel of an old fashioned English inn. But this isn't London, this is Utah and the Lion House Pantry is the main restaurant in  Temple Square , the complex of historic and modern buildings that make up the headquarters of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City. To understand the new trends in the Utah food scene, the Lion House Pantr...

I stopped in London to search out affordable and interesting places to eat.  Long disparaged, English food has had a renaissance with innovative chefs following global trends in the pursuit of locally sourced, farmers market fresh ingredients.  Ottolenghi My wife's cousin who lives in Switzerland insisted that when we were in London, we had to go to Yotam Ottolenghi' s food shops selling ready-made or, as the English call it, "take-away" salads, mains and desserts. I visited the Belgravia Ottolenghi at 13 Motcomb Street (there are others in Noting Hill, Islington and Kensington and a small sit down restaurant called Nopi near Oxford Circus). Ottolenghi is a showman who puts his flashiest products in the front window. The tarts, cup cakes, muffins and cookies are drop dead gorgeous. Just inside the shop, farmers market fresh salads are displayed in large oval bowls on elevated platforms, the better to grab your attention. Almost as an afterthought, the few...